I found this because I was looking for Robie Scucchi on the Internet. He taught me at Northwest High School, House Springs, Missouri from 1968-1971. I lost touch with him and now wish I could find out something--anything. Details on the Internet are sketchy. I know he was at MSU. I find occasional deceased notices but cannot determine they are his (several Robie P Scucchis out there). Can you update me? He remains the top influence on my artistic development, and I finally returned to making and selling art about 7 years ago. I owe him so much.

Robie Scucchi died in 2000 of cancer at age 56. He had served as tenured art professor for many years at Mississippi State University. During his time there, many students filed complaints against him for inappropriate and criminal behavior. One notorious case involved his felonious "framing" of a painting student, in which he set the student up to make it appear as though the student had stolen hundreds of dollars worth of video equipment from the art department. After the student filed a formal complaint with the proper campus authorities, the crime was ultimately covered up and expunged from all records by Scucchi's powerful friends in MSU's administration. He was finally fired from MSU in 1996 after two more student victims filed complaints against him -- the first time that a tenured MSU professor had been fired. Legally speaking, he should have been fired, charged, prosecuted and jailed in 1981 for his crime of framing the previous student victim.

Robie Scucchi obviously possessed a deeply disturbed mind that, though it may have been beneficial in his artwork, was extremely detrimental in his professional and social interactions with students and others. By blatantly abusing his power, he hurt many young people during his troubling career. Many of his victims could have been spared from his disturbing behavior if MSU administrators had done the right thing in 1981 by firing him for the framing incident, instead of doing the wrong thing by protecting him and covering up for him.